Nolit Abanilla - Early Reflections, Late Night Decisions (2004)

 

 

To start the ball rolling, I picked my own album. Originally released in cassette and converted to CD, this is my first official release. The songs in this album were recorded in 1998, mostly taken from the demotep collection 1-5. The CD was released in 2004.

The original release were my recordings done on a fostex 4-track cassette recorder, using Boss Dr Rhythm for drums. I played all the guitars, bass and keyboards. Some songs like "Atup" were recorded with live drums. The CD had 18 songs while the subsequent releases which were remastered had only 10. The latest in 2021,  made for digital release was redrummed and remastered.

I am heavily influenced by new wave music from the 80s. I have selected songs with commercial appeal from tons of demos, thus most of the songs in this album were about love and relationships. "Echoing Cries of the Unborn Children" is different however as it tackles the topic of abortion. "Give" on the other hand is my take on the trend of the time..e.g. Live aid and we are the world. Another song called "Atup" is an experimental one with hidden messages.

Harmonically, the songs in this album are refreshing and light. The words are mostly intriguing and naughty. The album title means echoes of what goes through the mind on a late night decision. An example would be guilt feelings after deciding to leave or stay after an overnight event.

Tracklist:

1. Jam Groove

2. Sa 'yong Karanasan

3. Innosence 

4. Hope You Do

5. Tatakasan

6. Give

7. Atup

8. Tabi Po

9. Echoing Cries of the Unborn Children

10. Di Minsan Lang

 

This album is originally released by Bright Red Music Productions. It is distributed digitally by Indiepinoy Co. They are available on 7Digital, Amazon, Anghami, Aiwa, Beatsource, Bmat, Deezer, Fixy, Genie Music, Gracenote, IHeartRadio, IMusica, JioSaavn, Joox, KKBox, Kuack Media, Lickd, LINE Music, NAVER VIbe, NetEase Cloud Music, Nuuday A/S, Pandora, Peloton, Qobuz, Simbals, Soundcloud, Tencent, Tidal, Tiktok, TouchTunes and Trebel Music.

 

You can listen to the album here:  

 

There are plenty of songs in the bucket!

A person listens to music everyday. He has his own preference. But he does not listen to the same song over and over all throughout his life. He listens to a lot of songs. Some he may like and will repeat listening to it. But definitely he will be listening to tons of music in his lifetime. 

Unfortunately, access to music has became controlled by a business. To be able to be heared around the world artists must enter a contract with a label who will record their songs, distribute their music and be heared on radios. Without these the artist can only opt to playing live, but the reach would be limited to the community or the place where they play. 

Then came the internet, and everything changed. Suddenly, it became easy to be heard globally. Even if you are a small band from a small town in timbuktu, you can make a space on the internet. Making music has also evolved. It became cheaper to record a song. You can even do it at your own bedroom. Music has become readily available to all if you know where to look. 

It is sad however that most of us are still trapped on the old mentality of listening to music by limiting ourselves to only those popularly heared on social media. We are used to listening to only music supplied to our ears via radios and televisions. And the demons in the business are desperately trying to regain control of the money that flows in the music industry. 

The struggle remains for the artist to recieve their fare share in the business. The audience must free their minds from old norms of listening to only those feed to our ears. And instead go forth and listen to all forms of music. Sometimes your taste in music is limited to your exposure to it. Open your ears. Start listening to a lot of music because there are plenty of songs in the bucket. 

This blog is my attempt to expose you to a lot of music from all genres. I will try to focus more on songs and albums which needed more exposure. Some of the artist are gone, but their music remains. And if we don't start listening to their songs, they might be forgotten. The keyword here is to discover. There are a lot of songs and albums released decades ago that got lost in oblivion. Some dont have a distributor anymore and so their songs became hard to find. We will try to give them space again here. Let the people rediscover them. For those that still have active distribution I will link them here as I am sure that is what the artist wants. 

In a nutshell this is what this blog is all about. I hope you subscribe and visit here regularly. I will try my best to provide new content every week. If you have any request don't hesitate to leave a comment. You can also contribute as my resources are limitted to what I could only reach. Let us make this a healthy community.